Which VR Headset to Get?

The Quest 2 is the best bang for the buck by far. Unfortunately made by facebook, but designed by John Carmack while he was still working there, and if I'm not mistaken sold at a loss. For the money it's the clear choice.

Another option if you don't mind over paying is the valve index. You'll get higher resolution and finger tracking. It's also said to be quite comfortable. At $1000 it's more like a sports car. By that I mean it breaks down all the time. When it's working it's great but if you use it a lot there are problems with the controllers. Lots of RMA stories. Many people turn to dissembling them and fixing things themselves. I've turned to that with my Vive.

The soon to be released PSVR 2 on PS5 is also worth an honorable mention but leaves out some of the experimental VR stuff you can hack around at on PC VR.

Edit:

I should note as well with the Quest 2. There isn't even a tradeoff between PCVR and standalone mode. You can get the link cable and use it as a PCVR headset to play steam games etc.

I tried ALOT of headsets over the years. Sadly there is nothing close to the quest 2. It is not only the price but the ease of use. Want to game on a huge field? The quests has no problem with that and is setup within seconds not minutes. Portable and lightweight yet comfortable with an elite strap. Tracking is superb aslong as the lighting conditions are good. Get the vive if you have a powerful PC, money to spend, a big room with no obstacles, something to fix the cable to the ceiling, a nerdy wife/friends and never think about playing somewhere else but in this one room.

Oculus quest 2 no doubt about it.

Unless you are super rich and don't care about money or just hate Facebook - I don't think anything beats the hardware quality of q2.

If you are planning on using your phone, I suggest getting an official Google Cardboard unit.

https://arvr.google.com/cardboard/get-cardboard/

There are plenty of other phone holder style units but they may not work with the cardboard app(Which has a large amount demos/apps)

If you are looking for something more advanced and can wait a bit, I would do that. I would expect the console gamming systems will be pushing out some new offerings soon.

Occulus is an option but from my understanding it is married to FaceBook/Meta and that is a risky proposition IMHO.

I don't think the Quest 2 has any decent competition on price and capability. Unless you want to consider a wired setup for some reason, take Meta's incredibly subsidized headset and have fun!